A Reflection on "The Inner Life of Rebellion" by Maaike Muude, GR Walks Research Coordinator

So, I've been encouraged to write a reflection on the podcast, "The Inner Life of Rebellion, " which kind of feels like someone saying, "Do the impossible." This, and the fact that it enlivened my childhood dream TO BE NPR'S KRISTA TIPPETT. (Or Lakshmi Singh. Either one, I'm not going to be picky about it.)

Anyways, the podcast is a dialogue between two social justice activists, Parker Palmer and Courtney Martin, with Tippett narrating and facilitating the conversation. (Or, if we wanna get specific, the titles of the two guests are "Quaker elder, educator, and activist" and an "author, entrepreneur, and speaker." Real casual, Krista.)

I flip through the transcript of the podcast to see my underlines, highlights, and exclamation points, all written using a silver marker which somehow makes them that much more emotive. 

Quotes like,

"It's an act of rebellion to show up as someone trying to be whole."

"If this generation does rebellion differently, generatively, I think it will be because of a redemptive commitment... to connect inner life and outer life, inner work and social change; to be reflective and activist at once; to be in service as much as to be in charge; and to be wise in learning from elders and from history while bringing very new realities into being for this age."

"You should trust your own outrage. Being able to honor that anger is one of the most important muscles of a rebel."

"I've had moments in my life where I've felt totally paralyzed, but there's such a powerlessness in that. You have to have this robustness around holding complexity, and being able to acknowledge that it's kind of beyond our comprehension, and yet you still have to keep trying to do it, and do it in the most ethically, honorable way."

"Empathy becomes a liability because of what is laid upon it (we are bombarded by the dark complexities of the world... especially by the news)."

"You need the chutzpah to know that you have a voice worth speaking, and things worth saying, and you need the humility to know that it's vital to listen, because you may not have it right at all, or only a very partial grasp on the truth." 

"We need to grapple with the relationship between discomfort and wholeness."

"You know, we really need to be talking with each other about these things (depression and mental and emotional health struggles). We need to go public with it because we are each other's health care workers."

"The modern violence of overwork."

"I think a lot of very powerful people have no time to pause. They don't create those spaces. I think some of the most unethical things happen in the world because of that cacophony. 

"The kind of rebel I want to be... is someone who learns in public, and not have my ego be so tender that it get bruised into silence."

Amidst these quotes, the two activists discuss, among other things, our society's obsession with efficiency, "living online vs. living on land," joyful giving, creating safe spaces, and using one's power. 

And because a list of quotes is not a reflection, I'm feeling like I'm coming up a bit short.

And so then I just think about this past weekend and the week ahead. 

I think about my GRIL students who I saw this weekend and who I simply adore, because, although cliche, they have taught me so much. I think about how I'm going with them to the Ash Wednesday service at St. Francis Xavier this week. 

When we were together this past weekend, we were studying Philippians 3:7-11. 

And then I see a connection. 

These verses are Paul (whom I also adore) talking about knowing God and that as we come to know God, we come to know pain as well. Verses 10 and 11 read, "I want to know Christ--yes, to know the power of his resurrection and participation in his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, and so, somehow, attaining to the resurrection from the dead."

Basically, this verse squashes a lot of flowery Christian encouragement cards. 

This verse tells us that to say "I'm going to follow Christ" is to say, "I'm going to subject myself to hardship." 

As Christians, we might try to avoid this verse. I know I do. 

But then I flash forward to Ash Wednesday. 

According to my (brief, internet) research, the significance of the ashes during Wednesday's service will be twofold: one, reminding us of our human mortality, and two, as a symbol of sorrow and repentance for our sins. 

And then I think of the symbols of Christianity: ashes, the cross (which yeah, it's an instrument for torturous murder which we wear as jewelry), and, my personal favorite, eating human (and divine!) flesh and blood as a weekly ritual. 

And then Philippians doesn't seem so weird, because this religion isn't exactly "feel good." 

It feels like some morbid cult. 

So anyways, at the end of the overwhelmingly profound activist podcast is a poem. It's written by Victoria Safford, who by my (brief, internet) research is a minister. (Although, she's a minister of the unitarian universalist church--perhaps she couldn't quite stomach the blood and guts of Christianity--but I do think she has wisdom to share with us here.) 

Hope

Our mission is to plant ourselves at the gates of Hope--not the prudent gates of Optimism, which are somewhat narrower; nor the stalwart, boring gates of Common Sense; nor the strident gates of Self-Righteousness, which creak on shrill and angry hinges (people cannot hear us there; they cannot pass through); nor the cheerful, flimsy garden gate of "Everything is gonna be alright." But a different, sometimes lonely place, the place of truth-telling, about your own soul first and its condition, the place of resistance and defiance, the piece of ground from which you see the world both as it is and as it could be, as it will be; the place from which you glimpse not only struggle, but joy in the struggle. And we stand there, beckoning and calling, telling people what we are seeing, asking people what they see.

And there it is again, first in Philippians, and now in this poem. The word suffering (or struggle). And these two texts bring to memory this moment in high school when I was talking to my friend Amber. Amber and I had grown up together on the soccer field. In fact, I was the goalie and she was the sweeper (if you know anything about soccer, you know that this is a very special relationship. We were buds). 

In the fall seasons of high school, though, I ran cross country and she played volleyball. And we were talking about our sports, and I remember saying to her, the day of a meet, "The feeling before a race is so strange. It's different than anything I've felt before a soccer or basketball game. Because while those sports are indeed taxing, with cross country what you are essentially doing is choosing to go through about 21 minutes of intense pain. You know racing is going to hurt. And yet, you do it almost weekly. The day of a meet is a day of knowing that tonight, I will suffer with and for my team."

I think this feeling is similar to what people experience as they prepare to be baptized, or make profession of faith, or simply get up another day and whisper yes to Jesus. It's this feeling of willingly choosing to suffer, with and for your brothers and sisters. With and for Christ. Like cross country, this struggle is both individual and communal.

And this might be where the life of rebellion and the life of the Christian are one. We willingly choose to suffer, because to suffer is to know God, and to know God is to plant ourselves at the gates of Hope--daring to hope might just be one of the most rebellious (and courageous) things we can do as fragile humans on this earth. 

And so. As the priest thumbs ashes onto our foreheads this Wednesday, and we bow our heads in repentance towards the cross, we hope that Jesus really is our saving grace, and that when we get up in the morning and whisper yes, he hears us, suffers with us, and, if we listen closely enough, whispers back.